Seasonal.

[mrissa]

Today it's snowing pretty hard here, and a cry has gone up from my friendslist. Which is all part of the spring ritual: it snows in late March or early April, and everybody's had it with the snow. (Everybody except me. Sorry. I am never tired of snow.) And it's just immensely comforting to me, the snow and the whining both. It is whining that knows its place in the world. It is the right whining.

markgritter is out in California for his last trip with Sun, and my mom's taken the dogbeast for most of the week so that I don't have to haul her vertiginously through the snow, bend over nearly on my head to wipe off muddy paws, etc. etc. et-dogly-c. Much appreciated. So it's just me and timprov and the baseball noises coming from the TV. The baseball noises, too, are in their proper place.

When I was listening to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Magic panel at Minicon, I got to wondering whether the Cities have more of a rhythm of the year than other places, or whether I know more of the tune that goes with it, or maybe some of both. I know when to expect dragon boat races on Lake Phalen and when the average last frost comes; I watch for the first snow of the fall and for the last ice on the big lakes in the spring, for Aquatennial to give way to the State Fair, for the Holidazzle parade to precede the Winter Carnival. I know that the festivals of this calendar are my festivals, but what I don't know is whether there are more of them or whether I just know them better.

Be comforted, fellow Minnesotans and Minnesota-dwellers. The high school boys' basketball tournament is over, so we are now engaged in the spring ritual of Lots Of Snow That Goes Away Quickly.

I don't think I'd like Josh Ritter nearly so much if I didn't believe that he meant it when he sang, "Long time comin' but now the snow is gone." But Idaho, you see, is far enough north that I have some faith that he didn't mean, "Half an hour comin' but now the snow is gone," or, "we had a tiny bit in early February but now the snow is gone." The glee in his voice knows what it means to have the snow gone after a long time. To breathe in the air without a gasp of shock at the cold. And we will, too, someday, and someday is probably by Friday at the latest.

But today there is hot chocolate, and there are library books, and there are easy things for two shaky folks to have for dinner, and I am giving in to my darker urges and printing out the bits of Aesir noir novel to see where they go. Just in case.

Comments

[sraun]

I'm also someone who likes the snow any time it comes!

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

I adore this. This is lovely.

We seem to measure around here in terms of what kids' sport season it currently is, too. I'm in the midst of lacrosse starting up at the moment.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oddly, boys' basketball is really the one that the weather seems to notice. There is nearly always tournament snow.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I like it too, since I got my only errand outside the house done early this morning.

I've been experimenting with my new camera, if you want to look at my lj.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I saw that!

[laurel]

Yeah.

I do like the snow a lot more now that I don't have to be out in it. My problems with it have always been logistical. I gripe sometimes because it's hard for me to leave the house on good days, if I have to be out and it snows, that makes it nearly-impossible a lot of times which can be a bummer. (I am glad we don't have tickets for tonight's game, for instance, though at least we can bus and light rail to the Dome).

It's a very pretty day. I've forgotten to eat today (so caught up in baseball) so will have to come up with something. Kevin will be home soon and the Twins game starts any minute now. Whee!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Eat. Food good.

Also: Gomez does not yet have his man-wrists. Hee.

[rosefox]

New York definitely has a rhythm to it, but I think less in terms of festivals and more about things like the first pear tree blossoms peeking out in late March, the women shivering in tank tops in April, the reek of ailanthus in early June, the reek of sun-baked dogshit in mid-July...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I like snow all the time too. The first year we lived here, a schoolfriend of Z's told him that there has been snow recorded in Montreal in every month of the year except August, and I spent the whole of July praying that it would be one of those years.

I think everywhere I have lived for a long time has those seasonal rhythms. It takes a while to be able to feel them. I knew I really lived in Lancaster when I knew what colours the trees behind my house would turn, and when there would be ducklings on the canal. I think it takes four or five years to feel your way into it. The first few years we lived here I kept being taken by surprise by things. Now it's only Jean-Baptiste that takes me by surprise, and it does it every year, so like your people whining about snow, my surprise is part of it.

I like seasonal rhythms and seasonal food and what I like best is that it changes and circles and comes back the same only different. In about a month, there will be fiddleheads, and we will eat fiddleheads at every meal for a couple of weeks, and then they'll be gone again until next year. And I love fiddleheads, but I don't want expensive imported Chilean fiddleheads available every day all year, because part of what I love about them is the way they're only there briefly and you have to gather them while you may.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We are like that, too: only August never comes through for us. Or only August is safe. Depending on who you ask.

[pameladean]

Oh, good, I'm so relieved. I haven't had time to really read LJ and am confused about what I've read and what I haven't, but I had the vague impression that you had not posted about the snow, and that was Just Wrong.

It was a very beautiful snowfall, and Eric got to shovel it, and we enjoyed our enforced day inside. Also David and Mark both got out before it started. So I'm content.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Actually, it started snowing hard just as Mark's plane was taxiing. Still, he got out safely.

[lynnal.livejournal.com]

Based on a sample size of n=2, I'd say that you know the signs of the Twin Cities really well. Madison has a slightly different set of signs, at slightly different times. Art Fair on the Square instead of the Uptown Art Fair. Being in zone 5 instead of zone 4 shows up in the timing of things. Yesterday we had rain when you had snow. We still have piles of snow, but the crocuses are blooming in my neigbor's yard. I've been enjoying learning the new signs, like the street festival in my neighborhood.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Crocuses! My goodness. I'm not at all ready for crocuses.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Snow is one of my major coping strategies for the winter. We lost the snow a few weeks ago and my brain switched into spring, but spring wasn't all the way here, so it was just demoralizing. Cold. Gray and grey. Rotting snow everywhere, and sand piles, and mud. No light at all.
Then enough spring came up that spring-brain could hold on to it, and things got better.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think that's one of the divisions between types of people: those to whom melting snow looks like promise, and those to whom it looks like decay.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

It wasn't decay, exactly, only that my brain switched seasons before the ground did. In winter, it is cold and I have to spend a lot of money staying warm, but I feel tough and capable and get lots of snow, which brings light with it once it's down. If I lose the second part, the first part gets harder to deal with. It's a bit like the years where the plants die and the trees drop their leaves and then it gets back into the nineties, so the world is stale and done with and it's still hot.

[brooksmoses]

I was noticing, as I was in Denver on Wednesday, that it was still very much winter there -- no snow, and not really cold, but none of the plants were green. It was really kind of depressing and bleak.

And apparently there was a good snowstorm 20 miles away, yesterday before I left. There wasn't one where I was; I was very disappointed. The worst thing about living in the Bay Area is that I don't get snow, and I miss it a lot.